Friday, November 02, 2007

The Rule Of Law Comes First

"From this administration, we will never get somebody who agrees with us on issues like torture and wiretapping. The best thing we can hope for is someone who will depoliticize the Justice Department and put rule of law first."

The problem is that Mukasey has already demonstrated that he won't put the rule of law first. He refuses to say whether waterboarding is torture in part because to do so would put members of the administration in legal jeopardy. That means he puts the legal welfare of Bushies before the legal welfare of the United States as a whole.

How often do we need to remind people that the Attorney General's client is the United States, not George W. Bush?

I generally think that Mukasey is probably the best we can hope for from Bush on the question of depoliticization (he doesn't strike me as a Rovian player). He's about the most sane nominee we can expect to come from Bush (certainly better than Ted Olson).

But on the question of putting the law first, the answer is already before us in Mukasey's own words. The law takes a back seat to protecting his benefactors.